The present invention relates generally to medicine cabinets and, more specifically, to a medicine cabinet having shelves that are less than the full width of the cabinet and that are completely supported at one end by engaging the rear of the cabinet and at the other end by engaging the side of the cabinet.
Medicine cabinets of the type used in bathrooms of residential dwellings for storing articles such as medicines and personal hygiene products typically have a rectangular pan-shaped housing with a hinged door. The door may have a mirror, and the cabinet may be mounted in a recessed manner in the bathroom wall. The interior of the housing typically has multiple shelves. In some conventional medicine cabinets the shelves may be moved or adjusted to multiple vertical positions to accommodate articles of different sizes.
Practitioners in the art have addressed the problem of maximizing storage in a medicine cabinet when articles of different sizes are stored. In a conventional medicine cabinet, the vertical distance between shelves must be adjusted to accommodate the tallest article placed on the lower shelf. Thus, the space above shorter articles is wasted, particularly if only a very small number of articles are taller than the other articles. Often, it is difficult or inconvenient to group articles of a particular height together on a shelf. For these reasons practitioners have developed medicine cabinets that have shelves extending across the cabinet only a fraction of the cabinet width, such as one-half. A shorter article on one side of the cabinet may thus be placed adjacent a taller article on the other side of the cabinet, and a half-width shelf may be placed directly above the shorter article.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,139,322, issued to Aisley, discloses a medicine cabinet that has half-width shelves, which are movable among a plurality of vertical positions. A central support bracket disposed vertically in the cabinet and formed integrally with the rear wall of the cabinet engages and supports one end of each half-width shelf. A side wall of the cabinet engages and supports the other end. Although such an arrangement increases storage space, it lacks flexibility because the central bracket is immovable and of a predetermined length.
A medicine cabinet manufactured by Jensen General Corp. has half-width shelves that are movable among a plurality of vertical positions. A post supports one end of each shelf in the middle of the cabinet, and a side wall of the cabinet supports the other end. The post has a snap-type connector that engages one of a plurality of holes arrayed vertically down the middle of the rear wall. The post also has two diametrically opposing grooves along its length. A horizontal surface extending the full width of the cabinet may be formed by inserting one shelf between one groove and one side wall and another shelf between the other groove and the other side wall. Such a cabinet is not economical to manufacture because it comprises several different parts. Moreover, seating a post in the rear wall of the cabinet and then seating two shelves between the post and the side walls is an inconvenient procedure because it involves two separate steps and three separate parts. In addition, a user must be careful to ensure that the ends of the shelves are properly seated in the post before placing articles on the shelves.
A medicine cabinet that has movable shelves that extend less than the full width of the cabinet, is economical to manufacture, and is simple and convenient to use is needed. These problems and deficiencies are clearly felt in the art and are solved by the present invention in the manner described below.